


Glorious Possibilities

by belmanoir



Series: Strange Truths [2]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Multi, Pegging, Poly V, Polyamory, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:01:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28422114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/pseuds/belmanoir
Summary: Watson gets a threesome for his birthday.
Relationships: Mary Morstan/John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/Mary Morstan/John Watson
Series: Strange Truths [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2081721
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





	Glorious Possibilities

“Do you imagine Holmes means to dress for dinner?” I asked my wife. It was my birthday—the first since he and I had begun once more sharing a bed, with Mary’s blessing—and he had invited me and my wife to dine at Baker Street. 

This unprecedented gesture both surprised and touched me, though it had never occurred to me to feel slighted that he always came to us: it was less trouble all round, as Mary and I kept a cook, and Holmes’s sitting room was frequently unfit for guests.

He had asked us for 4, with dinner at 6, which seemed to me to teeter on the edge of _evening_. I did not expect Mary to to have any better guess than I did, and was really only thinking aloud, and wishing the question had occurred to me an hour ago, when there would have been time for a telegram to clear up the point. 

“He had better,” my wife said grimly, emerging from her wardrobe with the dress in which she had accepted my proposal—a white, fluttering thing trimmed in crimson. 

Startled, I searched her face. “Is everything all right, dearest? I…” I was a little nonplussed, for Mary had never in my experience appeared to set so much store by such formalities. “If he does not, you must not take it as a sign of disrespect to yourself.” I reproached myself again for my lack of foresight. “We shall be at Baker Street, at any rate,” I comforted myself, “and I can always tell him to change his clothes.”

She relaxed her frown with an effort. “It is not that, John. I’m sorry! I hope you don’t think I mean to turn up my nose at Mr. Holmes’s hospitality if it is not up to my genteel feminine standards. I only…well, you shall see.” An expression crept into her face that I can really only describe as glee, and she spun away to hide her smile.

Ah. Evidently the pair of them had planned some little surprise for my birthday, which Mary desired to come off in style. Though I could not guess what it might be, I knew Holmes’s love of the dramatic well enough to be pretty confident that he would not disappoint her. “What do you mean, Mary?” I asked innocently, to watch her shoulders hunch in amusement. “What shall I see?”

She stuck her tongue out at me over her shoulder. “Help me with my buttons, John.”

* * *

Her anticipation and nerves grew with every street we passed in the cab. By the time we arrived in Baker Street, she could no longer meet my eyes, only dart little glances at me in between gazing determinedly out the window. 

On Holmes’s doorstep, she put her hand on my arm. “I hope you will be pleased, John. If you are not, you must say so, and not be afraid of hurting my feelings—or Mr. Holmes’s.”

“Of course.” I searched her face, more mystified still, but saw only that she was troubled, and that she had taken pains with her appearance, and was more made-up than usual. “Let me kiss you again before I ring the bell. You look so beautiful.”

She blushed—for despite her darkened lashes and scarlet lips, she had forgone powder, and I could clearly see the pink stain spreading in her cheeks. “You will end up wearing half my lipsalve.”

I grinned. “Holmes will be disappointed if we give him nothing to infer.”

She beamed helplessly up at me, and allowed a brief press of my lips.

We had barely greeted my former landlady when the door at the top of the stairs banged open. “Show them up, Mrs. Hudson!”

We all exchanged resigned, tolerant smiles, and obeyed the summons. I half expected to see Holmes waiting impatiently on the threshold, but evidently that would have spoiled the tableau, for he posed briefly by the handsomely appointed table to let Mrs. Hudson announce us, before coming to bow over Mary’s hand, and offer me his.

I shook it, but I could not find my voice to stammer a greeting. Holmes had dressed for dinner.

“Thank you, Mrs. Hudson,” he said. “That will do for now; I shall call you when we are ready for dinner, and not before.”

The door shut, and still my face felt as though it were on fire—and not only my face. 

Holmes had not only donned evening clothes; no, he had slicked back his hair, and shaved afresh, his clear-cut features sharp and smooth. The stark black and white was broken only by the spray of crimson polyanthus in his buttonhole, and a smattering of jewels given him by grateful clients whose cash he had refused: the jeweled ring from the Dutch royal family on his right hand, a band of filigreed gold on his left little finger, an ornately worked watch-chain, and red stones like drops of blood on each snowy cuff. 

With his gangling form and beak of a nose, an objective observer might have thought the effect rather like an overgrown magpie. Needless to say, I was not at all objective.

Holmes’s eyes sparkled at me, brighter than his rubies. “Good evening, Mrs. Watson. I see you have begun the festivities without me.” He swiped at my lower lip with his thumb, and showed her the smear of red.

“Holmes!” I said, horrified.

But to my astonishment, Mary only twinkled slyly up at him. “John said we ought to give you something to infer.”

They both burst out laughing for reasons I could not begin to fathom.

“Do you—were you able to—?” Mary asked Holmes at last, rather timidly I thought. 

“I have it here.” Holmes retrieved an oblong box from the mantelpiece and handed it to my wife.

Once she had it, she seemed not to know what to do with it. Embarrassment overcame her entirely; she glanced between us, and then thrust the box into my hands and covered her face. “Happy birthday, John,” came her muffled voice. “I shall show my face again when you have told me you like it.”

Holmes looked very amused. “Well, Watson, don’t keep your poor wife in suspense.”

I opened the box, and nearly choked. Inside was a curved ivory phallus, life-sized.

Holmes looked at Mary as if waiting for her to speak. 

Instead she buried her face in my shoulder. “Mr. Holmes, would you explain?”

Holmes shrugged, and ran his finger up the carving, with a smirk that made my blood pound in my ears. “Mrs. Watson asked me to purchase this for her, to use upon you, and I have agreed to assist her this evening in familiarizing herself with its manner of employment, if that is agreeable to you.”

My face heated, and I blinked. “That—is most obliging of you, my dear fellow. But Mary, I—” I cleared my throat, putting an arm around her. “Darling, I don’t think it can be very complicated. I am sure we can manage ourselves.”

Holmes laughed, and Mary emerged to roll her eyes at me. “Of course we could, John. But Mr. Holmes has agreed to assist me, if you would like, for your birthday.”

Holmes laughed harder. “There is really no getting anything past you, Watson. You have quite seen through our little stratagem.”

“Oh.” I could feel my eyes growing round. “I see. And—you really both—but you seem mortified by the idea, Mary.”

“Because you have not yet said whether you are pleased!” she said, half laughing.

“I—I—” At last I understood the meaning of Mary’s speech on Holmes’s doorstep: _If you are not pleased you must say so, and not be afraid of hurting our feelings._ And I saw her difficulty now, too, for it was the mirror of my own. I could not say I was pleased, until I was sure _they_ were. “And Holmes, you—”

He raised his eyebrows and rocked on his heels, smiling mischievously at me. “I shan’t take it to heart if you find the idea too outré,” he said, in a way that made it very clear he knew precisely how I found the idea.

“Mary, if you are really sure—you have been so nervous all evening, and I should never wish you to do anything for my sake which did not seem to you…Do you really want to—?” I darted another glance at the—well, I supposed ‘dildo’ was the only word for it. “You do not find the idea of—using that—distasteful? It will require…” I took a deep breath. “You have never touched me there. Perhaps you will not…”

My wife licked her lip. “I am sure I will be a little squeamish at first,” she said in a small voice. “But Mr. Holmes thought I should soon accustom myself, and that you would—” She flushed brighter yet. “That it would repay my pains.” She twisted her hands together, and glanced at Holmes. “Perhaps we ought not to have made it a surprise, but—the look on your face was quite priceless.” Her voice grew a little surer. “I do want to, if you do.”

“It was Mrs. Watson’s idea,” Holmes said. “I would never have dreamt of approaching your wife with such a proposal.”

That made Mary laugh. “John is not accusing you of corrupting me, Mr. Holmes. Really, darling, if you think about it for a moment, you will see how improbable it is we should be having this conversation at all, if I did not like the idea.” She put her hand on my arm. “You know,” she said in a low voice, “that I am quite shameless.” Her eyes darted to mine and fell back to the carpet, but there was a warm smile in them.

To say so in private would have been sweet daring enough. But it stole my breath to hear her remind me of such precious intimacies before Holmes, to put me at my ease. I put my hand over hers, and squeezed it.

The idea that they had conferred together over this…Had Mary come here? Had she sent for Holmes while I was out on my rounds? And he had told her—well, _it would repay my pains_ could only mean that he had told my wife I enjoyed being fucked. My blood pounded in my ears. “And Holmes, you are sure—” Then I remembered that I had already asked him. 

_Then_ I remembered Mary’s indignation at the idea that he might not dress for dinner. All at once it was borne in upon me that they had both dressed for _this_. Mary’s lipsalve was for _this_ , and Holmes had known it when he observed its traces upon my lips. 

“Yes,” he said fondly. “I see the whole mystery unravels itself at last.”

“There is one point I—did you agree to both wear red and white, or did you somehow deduce which frock Mary would choose?”

Holmes grinned. “Perhaps it is a coincidence.”

Mary glanced at him, startled, and looked down at herself. “Well, I suppose it was not such a leap,” she said after a moment. “I am quite sentimental about this dress.”

Holmes shrugged. “It was only a probability.”

My laugh was rather strangled. But I did my best to clear my throat, and give them an answer. “I feel very greedy, accepting such an extravagant present. But of course I am—I don’t know what is appropriate to say. I am not used to discussing these sorts of matters with both of you at once. But I think it is probably obvious that I am quite overcome with gratitude.”

To my entire shock, Holmes ran his finger up the closure of my trousers in precisely the same way he had touched the dildo a few moments ago. “Yes, I suspect your gratitude would be unmistakable even to an untrained eye.”

I looked instinctively at Mary, to see how she took this. Evidently I had not quite shaken Holmes’s dire prediction, that a theoretical knowledge was different than a practical one; all at once I became aware of how carefully I had striven to keep her knowledge of our intimacy as theoretical as possible. She did look flustered, and a little uncertain—but eager too, her eyes bright and her painted lower lip caught in her teeth. In fact, her expression was not all that different from what it had been that evening in Nice, before she had gone down to seduce Mr. Huysman.

She did not mind seeing me with Holmes?

Several seconds elapsed before my slow brain reminded me that she was about to see me with Holmes—that she had planned it, as a treat for me. My demure little wife, in fact, was much more adventurous than I, now she trusted me enough to let me see it.

My arousal was rapidly becoming all-encompassing.

My lovers looked at one another. “We have discussed it all very thoroughly,” Mary said. “Should you like us to lay out our plans, or should you prefer to be surprised?”

“I should much prefer to be surprised,” I admitted. “But I am afraid of doing something which—which will make one of you jealous, or angry, or embarrassed.”

“You need not do anything at all, but what we ask you to,” Holmes said. “If that suits you.”

“I am dreaming,” I said. “I must be dreaming.”

“A good dream?” Mary asked.

I nodded. 

And so I was marched up the narrow stairs to my old bedroom, with Mary’s hand on my arm and Holmes’s on the small of my back. On the night-table was an unfamiliar leather case and two boxes of Vaseline—Holmes’s old tin, and a shiny fresh one, presumably for Mary to take home with us. I swallowed hard.

“All right, Watson.” Holmes smiled at me. “If you would be so good as to undress?”

“Oh, but John,” Mary said. “First you must tell us—if there is anything _we_ might do to make you angry or jealous. If you do not wish to see Mr. Holmes touch me, for example.”

My mouth went dry. “The awful truth is that I should like very much to see Mr. Holmes touch you, Mary.”

Holmes laughed, twisting off his rings and setting them on the night-table with a cheerful clink. My mouth went dry, the implications of _that_ clear even to me. 

“I thought you might,” he said. The cuff-links were next, and he began to tug his jacket over his wrists and off. 

I realized they had not asked if I would mind her touching Holmes. I was surprised to find that for a brief moment, I nearly _did_. I had been more or less the only object of Holmes’s desire for so long—at least in any practical, lasting sense—that I felt a pang, to think of him wanting Mary. I was abashed to realize that I was a little afraid he had loved me so long only because nobody else interested him.

But in another moment I saw that I was being quite ridiculous, and that anyway it was extremely unlikely either of them would have any sexual interest in the other, out of my own presence. Holmes had never looked twice at a woman in that way, as far as I knew, and Mary had as good as told me she did not think my friend handsome.

Besides, the reason they had not asked must be because Holmes had already rejected the idea out of hand. I could not imagine him relaxing his deep personal reserve so far, and was stunned even to see him begin to roll up his sleeves—and indeed, his fingers hesitated on his left cuff. 

But he sighed, and shrugged, and with crisp, precise motions exposed his scarred forearm to view.

Seeing it, my sweet Mary tried to catch his eye and smile, but he ignored her.

“I shall leave it all up to you both,” I said. “I can think of nothing that would make me uneasy, which I think at all likely to occur; if I am mistaken I shall tell you, but in any case I shan’t be angry.”

“Excellent,” Holmes said. “You may use our usual password. Mrs. Watson, I believe I explained the system to you? The phrase brings about an immediate suspension of proceedings and a conference, as it were, in chambers.”

“Yes, you said it was ‘habeas corpus’.”

I flushed, wondering if she had guessed what the choice of phrase seemed to me to make very transparent—that we had instituted the policy due to Holmes’s fondness for restraints.

He smiled at me. “Clothes, Watson.”

It was very strange to undress with _both_ of them watching me. I did not know where to look, or how to behave. I had never realized how differently I behaved with each of them. I felt I ought to make some sort of show of it, to satisfy their theatrical bents, but in the end it was only my wife who made a show of fussing over my discarded garments with teasing glances at Holmes—for she was still highly entertained by his rather singular conclusion, the previous Christmas, that a wife who had ceased brushing her husband’s hat must have ceased also to love him.

And then there they were still in their evening dress, and I was quite naked, and very visibly...grateful.

Holmes hung the quilt over the footboard, and laid out a towel.

I am afraid that towel embarrassed me more than all the rest. But I reminded myself that Mary had said she wanted to. And Holmes squared the linen with the mattress with the same absentminded satisfaction with which he straightened the serving dishes on the tablecloth, when he had brought a hearty appetite to his breakfast. When it was arranged to his liking, he turned to me and gestured towards the bed with the courtly flourish of a stage magician.

Nerves mingled with my arousal as I took up my place on the towel. I could not quite bring myself to lie prone, and sat with my legs slightly bent and my hands looped round my knees, awaiting further instructions. I could not remember ever feeling so naked in all my life.

Holmes gave my ankle an affectionate pat. “Do you know, madam,” said he, “I complimented Dr. Watson the other day on his power of selection—in connection, obviously, with his little accounts of our cases. But I think we have perhaps outdone him.”

“I quite agree.” She laughed. “Oh, poor John! Look, he is too modest to be sure he has parsed your sentence correctly. Dearest, we are congratulating ourselves upon our great sagacity in loving you better than we do anybody else, because you so patently merit it.”

Holmes looked comically incredulous at her directness, and of course I scoffed and asserted that I still bore the palm.

“Quality over quantity, my dear fellow,” Holmes said, very dry, and they both laughed at my indignation.

Then he sat at the foot of the bed and pushed my legs apart with the casual authority of the surgeon in his operating theatre. “Lie back, Watson. Can you see, madam? If this knee blocks your view, we shall reposition it.”

He might as well have splashed brandy on a fire; my arousal flamed to an unbearable height.

And yet that was half the fun—it was unbearable, and yet in a moment I would have borne it. Just so had Holmes helped me imagine the unimaginable, and Mary taught me to speak the unspeakable. 

We were all capable of things we had not yet dreamed—but which we would, for we were dreamers. “I love you both,” I said, my voice thick. 

They glanced at each other—half laughing, I suppose, at my propensity for making declarations in bed, but plainly also scanning for signs of jealousy. I saw none myself, and evidently neither did Mary, for after a moment she said, “I love you too, John,” and looked expectantly at Holmes.

He flushed, and mumbled something.

My wife’s minatory frown had me laughing myself at the absurd idiosyncrasy of our situation. “Well, Holmes?” I teased him.

“Your wife is really a tyrant, Watson,” he said in amusement.

“You are both always telling me I have predictable tastes.”

He gave a shout of laughter. “A palpable hit!”

Mary elbowed him, and he threw up his hands. “My dear lady, I assure you, your husband is not in any doubt as to my sentiments.”

“No, none.” I smiled at them both. “Holmes is only shy because you are here, dearest.” 

He made a face, but did not contest the point. “Would you hand me the Vaseline, Mrs. Watson? The older box; the new one is for you, and I shall not deprive you of being the first to disturb its smooth surface. Now, there are three chief points here, which it will be as well to explain before we begin our demonstration.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “One, there is an erogenic zone on the prostate—that is, a gland in the male body which is accessible through the anus. Your husband can actually experience most of the sensations of orgasm, solely from prolonged stimulation of this gland. He may not remain fully erect or ejaculate, but that does not mean he is not intensely aroused, as I think you shall see.”

Mary looked a little overwhelmed. Reaching for her hand, I nudged Holmes with my knee—for he had been watching the effect of his professorial manner and ruthless lack of euphemism on me, not my wife. 

He turned towards her. “My apologies, I did not mean to embarrass you. I can be more colloquial if you prefer, though I think your husband is enjoying being an anatomical model.”

I flushed.

Mary sighed. “Embarrassment seems to be an inevitable consequence of flouting convention—and of doing something for the first time, as well.”

“Ah. You are feeling shy, then.”

She nodded.

He winked at her. “We shall be shy together. Dr. Watson is very patient; it makes him an excellent first subject.”

Mary dimpled faintly at him.

I quashed another affectionate avowal, and contented myself with squeezing her hand, and looking my thanks at him.

“Later we shall demonstrate the proper administration of ether,” he said blandly, and laughed silently at my violent start.

Mary looked uncertain. “Do you really…?”

Holmes’s expression turned thoughtful. “Not yet.”

Would I consider such a thing, another time? Despite his joke, I thought it likelier he would want me to administer it to _him,_ which I was sure I could do quite safely. But I remembered that a drug was the last Pandora’s box I wished to open with him. “Absolutely not, Holmes.”

He sighed. “Have it your way, doctor. Our second point”—he ticked it off on a finger—“is that these inner membranes are delicate, liable to tear, and lacking in natural lubrication. The Vaseline will help to remedy the defect, and prepare Dr. Watson to receive you. Three, you shall seek to relax and stretch the muscles of the sphincter, to allow a painless entrance.”

In counting these points, he had ended with three fingers extended together. He gave me a sidelong, gleaming glance, and measured their circumference with the thumb and forefinger of his other hand. “Generally, one wishes to use as many fingers as will be equal in girth to one’s instrument of penetration. Three suffices me, but you may prefer four, as your fingers are smaller and your prick more unforgiving.”

She flushed. “Can—can I insert my whole hand, if I wish to?” 

I blinked, for a self-conscious quality in her face and tone made me think she spoke from some personal experience, and I knew it was not with me. 

Holmes gave me another gleaming look. “A pertinent question. Certainly, if you are patient, and keep your fingernails short and smooth.”

Mary glanced involuntarily at his fingernails, and then hastily away.

“Have you any other questions, madam, before I begin the practical demonstration?”

She did not.

The practical demonstration proved to be a severe trial of my self-command. “Relax,” Holmes chided. “Mrs. Watson will think me an amateur.”

I took a sobbing breath and did my best, but in vain.

Holmes patted my thigh. “As you have ruled out ether, I think either a glass of wine or an orgasm is in order. Which should you prefer?”

I knew which I wanted, but—somehow I shrank from asking. I should have had no hesitation, with either of them alone, but both… “I said I would place myself in your hands.”

They looked at one another. “Honorable to a fault,” said Holmes.

Mary laughed. “John, we would not have asked, if you were not allowed to answer.”

That _we_ penetrated me more deeply and intimately than Holmes’s fingers. I took in another, deeper breath. “An orgasm, then. Thank you.”

“Mrs. Watson, if you would assist me?”

Mary stepped forward very promptly, with a smile that made me think they had planned for this contingency from the start.

When I imagined them planning this, heads bent together… Mary’s hand closed around my prick, and Holmes watched my reaction with the satisfaction of a scientist who sees his hypothesis confirmed by his data. 

“You will give yourself a crick in your neck, John.” I reached up for one of the pillows, but Mary released me to prop my head and shoulders up with wifely solicitude. “Are you comfortable, dearest?”

I had never felt so ridiculous in my life, but what could I do? I nodded. “You do not mind that I am being so…passive?” 

Holmes, who knew I had never really liked the word, raised his eyebrows. “Let us say receptive.”

“I should have called you easygoing,” Mary said. “Really, John, you cannot think pride and inflexibility would make you a better lover.”

Holmes looked a little discomfited, which nearly made me laugh, for Mary had certainly not intended to describe him. I nudged him again with my knee, very slightly, in a manner I hoped was reassuring.

He grinned. “Thank you, Watson.”

Mary bit the corner of her mouth as she looked at me, something hungry and sensual in the motion. She seated herself on the edge of the bed, against my hip. “I like when you place yourself in my hands,” she said quietly, and took me once more in hand.

Holmes rubbed his knuckles over my prostate. “You have forgotten that we are tyrants. Imagine the uneasy triumvirate, if you were one as well.”

I opened my mouth to reply more than once, and each time some motion of theirs had me swallowing a moan instead. It was too much—overwhelming. Their hands were not quite in harmony, so that my attention was drawn from one to the other—my wife frigging me very efficiently while my friend continued his usual leisurely exploration of my arse. 

I thought, somehow, of that first Sunday dinner: Mary outperforming me in Holmes’s deduction lesson, two sets of shoulders tilted eagerly towards me, two pairs of bright eyes fixed on my face. Not so long ago, it had been unimaginable that Holmes would even come to us for Sunday dinner—and now this!

There is no way to explain how I felt that will not sound self-indulgent, and yet it was they who indulged me, without my asking. I was as exposed, as clearly displayed as a slide under a microscope, yet I knew I need not fear their eyes, because they loved me.

“Soon,” I warned them.

Holmes hesitated. “Mrs. Watson?”

She nodded. “Please.”

Before I could make a guess as to what they intended, Holmes had bent his head and taken the crown of my prick into his mouth. I gasped.

“We have shocked him,” Mary said fondly, before I could even glance at her to be sure this was not a step too far. “But you do not mind that, do you, John?”

Holmes met my eyes, and flicked me with his tongue. With his _tongue_ , and my wife only smiled a little shyly when I groaned, and adjusted the angle of her grip to this new geography, tucking my naked leg more snugly against her side and leaning her arm upon it.

In the pause, Holmes let me feel the edge of his teeth. 

I jumped, scraping myself agonizingly, exquisitely.

“I could never have imagined this,” I said softly.

Holmes raised his head, ignoring my sound of protest. “Of course you could have, Watson. Possibly you _have_ imagined it. But this is why you persist in asserting that fiction is stranger than truth: you forget that what you imagine, can be realized.”

“Oh, pooh,” Mary said scornfully, holding my prick in place for when he should be done lecturing. “John does not lack daring; he is merely self-effacing.”

Happiness buoyed me up, and swept me away on an irresistible tide of stimuli. Eight determined fingers, four mischievous eyes, one inexorable mouth, and yet Holmes had been right: it was not the quantity, but the quality of their touch that made my pleasure swell suddenly to a flood, and drown out everything that was not _this,_ now, with them.

I did not even say _Please_. I did not have to. There was nothing left to ask for.

* * *

Holmes washed his hands while Mary gave me sweet, languorous kisses, like the brush of a fairy’s wings. Eventually he came and stood behind her, watching us. I asked him with my eyes if he would kiss me too, and he smiled and shook his head, laying a hand gently on Mary’s shoulder.

“Mrs. Watson…?” he murmured.

Mary gripped my hand rather hard, and stood. “Would you help me with my buttons, Mr. Holmes?”

When she wore nothing but her corset, chemise, and drawers, she gave him a pleading look. “What do you think, Mr. Holmes?”

He shrugged. “You must suit yourself, madam,” he said gently.

Catching my eye, she drew in a deep breath, and straightened. “John says that when something is not shameful, it is rational to be shameless about it.”

I saw him raise his hand as if to lay it soothingly at the small of her back, before he remembered she was half-dressed. His hand hovered, and fell. “That seems inarguable.”

Putting her hands to her bosom, she unhooked her corset and laid it by. I held my breath as she slipped out of her drawers, and stood in only her chemise. She held my eyes, very solemn. “I love you, John.”

I saw Holmes laugh noiselessly behind her.

I ignored him. “I love you too, Mary. I adore you.”

She took another deep breath, and pulled her chemise over her head. But she trembled.

“You are so beautiful, dear heart,” I told her. “Will you let me take the pins from your hair?”

I could feel her tremors as she leaned against me; but by the time I had withdrawn each pin, murmuring sweet nothings in her ear, she had steadied, and could turn to Holmes with a smile, and only a slight hunch of her shoulders to show that she was self-conscious. 

He had been waiting with patient tact, hands in his pockets and eyes on the corner of the ceiling. I hoped he did not feel shut out—but as it was so plainly his own preference to remain aloof, I decided not to press him.

“John,” Mary said softly, “Mr. Holmes has told me that his knowledge of the female genitalia”—she stuttered a little over the word—“has been acquired in purely medical and criminological contexts. He has said—that he would be glad of the chance to satisfy his curiosity on a few points while you are recovering yourself, if you are sure you do not object.”

“I…” I swallowed, and tried again. When they had spoken of Holmes touching her, I had imagined—his hand on her shoulder, or guiding her hip or wrist, as he made some small demonstration. I had not dared to imagine even his fingers curving over her breast.

And he had agreed to it? I wasn’t entirely sure whether Mary understood that _medical and criminological contexts_ meant _corpses_ , but I did. Holmes had never shown any _personal_ interest whatsoever in female sexual anatomy. “Quite sure, Mary, if you both are.”

Holmes spread his hands innocently. “Education is a lifelong pursuit, my dear fellow. Many happy returns of the day.”

Mary hesitated, and glanced between us. “ _Quite_ sure, John?”

The pulse was fluttering in her throat. It still seemed incredible that she wanted this, but I could see plainly that she did; to ask again would be taking my scruples to parodic extremes. I put my lips to her ear, and murmured, “He has an extraordinary delicacy of touch.”

She gasped, and Holmes’s own ears turned pink; I had forgotten how keen his hearing was. 

Mary nestled against me. “Will you hold me, John?”

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, and wrapped my arms around her. I swept her hair over one shoulder, bending to kiss the graceful curve thus exposed. “You are my good, brave girl,” I whispered. “If we want this, there is no reason on earth why we should not have it.”

“And you want it, John?” she murmured almost inaudibly. “You shall like seeing me so?”

Holmes came towards us, close enough I should have had to crane my neck to see his face. I was almost afraid to answer her, for fear my eagerness would pop the delicate moment like a soap bubble.

He tweaked my ear. “Indeed, madam, I do not think you need doubt it.” Ruefulness crept into his voice. “Plainly your wife knows you better than I do, Watson; I was not entirely sure, when she first proposed this gift for you, that it would suit you.” 

Mary curved a hand around my leg, tucking her fingertips between my thigh and the mattress, and tilted her face up. “We know him differently, I think. But education is a lifelong pursuit, as you say.” She hesitated. 

He laughed. “Have you some advice for me, Mrs. Watson?”

She ducked her head. “I think,” she said very softly, “that I could not know John as I do only from observing him; I have learned a great deal, as well, by revealing myself to him.”

My heart clenched. I thought of Holmes that night we first returned to one another, wriggling like a puppy and blowing smoke in my face. “Mary, don’t.”

Holmes crouched in front of us, hands on his knees. “It’s quite all right, Watson. I have every day more respect for your wife’s nerve and originality of thought.” His mouth curved. “I believe you once told me yourself that Mrs. Watson was less secretive than I, and had a less superior manner.”

I felt Mary’s startlement, and her flush of pleasure at the compliment, and her shame at her own vanity. I dropped another kiss on her shoulder, and pulled her more snugly against me with one arm. 

With the other I reached around her, and tipped Holmes’s chin up. His eyes pierced me, pinned me. How did he trap me like a butterfly on a cork-board, and at the same time release me from my net, to find a bright garden below and the heavens above?

“I am going to be mushy,” I warned him. “I know you hate it, and probably you hate it doubly because Mary is listening, so I shall refrain from any specific reminiscences. But I nevertheless feel it my duty to inform you that you are perfect, and that I am so very happy you are here, and that you look really absurdly handsome in your evening dress.” 

He sighed. “You never will have mercy on my poor blushes,” he said dryly, brushing dust from the knees of his crisp black trousers, and straightening his tie before he finally met my eyes again. “But I am glad my suit meets with your approval, as yours is really the only relevant opinion. Now, your poor wife has been waiting far more patiently than I would in her place, so perhaps we might return to the business at hand?” 

Mary made a sound of polite demurral that struck me as unspeakably charming in the circumstances. In a moment, Holmes would touch her as he had so often touched me; the knowledge set up a curious thrum in my chest.

Gently, I hooked each of her legs over mine, laying her open, and pressed a kiss to her temple. I could feel her excitement growing; she squirmed and laughed shakily as Holmes knelt between our legs and bent his head to regard her closely. 

“You must tell me if I do or say anything you do not like,” he said.

Mary nodded. “Yes. I will.”

“And you, Watson.”

“Certainly, Holmes.”

His eyes gleamed at me. Then he began to gently brush aside the light curls between my wife’s legs, humming and muttering the scientific name of each part of her vulva to himself as his fingers skimmed over them. “Ha! And this, of course, is the clitoris,” he said softly, drawing up its hood to expose it to view, pink and eager.

Mary panted with anticipation. I myself was barely breathing as Holmes brushed the pad of his thumb across it. 

She whimpered. He glanced up at her, and did it again. She gave a little moan, and tried to hide behind her hair. 

Holmes began to smile. “Well, I suppose I can see the appeal,” he conceded.

I waited to see if she would give him any instructions, but she only trembled, taut, in my lap. 

“It is _very_ sensitive,” I said softly, to see if she minded; her shiver told me very plainly that she did not. “If you mean to touch it directly for long, you must be gentle, and you will require lubrication. May I, Mary?”

She nodded with an eager little jerk of her head, her hair brushing my chest.

I put my hand between her legs. “Or the clitoral hood is also very sensitive, here, and will bear slightly rougher handling.” Mary wriggled, her sweet flesh warm against my fingers. Unwilling to stop touching her entirely, I laid my hands at the soft creases of her thighs to spread her _labia majora_ for Holmes. She sighed and, to my surprise, opened like a flower, relaxing a little in my lap and letting her head fall back against my shoulder, her hair falling away from her face. 

Holmes glanced up at her, and for a moment _I_ hid my face in Mary’s hair, to keep myself from telling him I loved him. I had never dared to hope that he would feel genuine affection for my wife, until it had already come to pass; beneath his occasional pettiness and self-absorption, there was a deep vein of generosity that had, perhaps, been the first thing I had loved in him, before I even recognized it for what it was.

I remembered what Mary had told him: _I am not a trusting woman. Yet I felt instinctively that you would do everything in your power to shield me from harm._

“Ah, you like that, Mrs. Watson.” The sound of his voice, when Mary was naked in my arms, overwhelmed me. I could scarcely understand his words. “So do I. Thank you, doctor.” His fingertips brushed my knuckles; I stayed still with an effort. Mary did not.

“Quite so, it swells in its own way. This is really very interesting. Would you object, madam, if I looked at it under the lens?”

“Pardon?” Mary asked, startled.

I raised my head. “He wants to use his magnifying glass,” I explained, rather self-conscious. I was long since resigned to Holmes occasionally producing his lens in bed, but I was aware that most people would find it, at best, extremely peculiar.

“I—if you wish to,” my wife said rather bemusedly, “I suppose I do not see why _not._ ”

There had always been something in Holmes’s touch that was—not impersonal. Not even detached. I can think of no word to describe it, except _pure_. Passionately so: art for art’s sake. Mixed with his love, I always sensed a more intellectual curiosity, an eagerness to observe and discover. Watching him with someone he was not himself attracted to, without my own sensations clouding my mind, I saw it more clearly than ever before. 

“This is a very dramatic change of color,” he said, intrigued, as Mary’s swollen clitoris turned a bright, angry pinkish red. He tinkered, muttered to himself, became distracted by the shape of a wrinkle in Mary’s folds, tracing it with a fingertip several times over until I prodded him with my foot.

He gave us a bright glance and apologetic shrug, and dipped his finger into Mary’s cleft, examining his glistening fingertip with interest. “I was already familiar with the smell, naturally, but…” He licked his finger.

Mary put her face in her hands—and moaned, jumping, when Holmes, very smug at the expression on my face, ran the tip of his tongue across her clitoris. 

Only once, alas. “All right,” he said. “If that is not sufficient, there is always the Vaseline. You have not changed your mind, madam?”

Mary swallowed. “No, Mr. Holmes. I…”

He waited, eyebrows raised in patient inquiry.

“Please,” she whispered at last. “Go on.”

I smoothed my hands over her hips. Her breasts rose and fell with her quick, shallow breaths. I wanted to touch them; I resolved with myself that I would, in a moment, but just now I could not bear to block my view.

I watched as first one, then two of Holmes’s long fingers worked themselves inside her to the third knuckle. “Hm. That is more agreeable than I expected.” 

Poor Mary was now at quite a pitch of excitement; a moment later, though I could not see it, I guessed from her high, sobbing gasp and the way her fingers dug into my flesh, that he had wiggled his fingers inside her. 

I was rather worked up myself—and then Holmes’s piercing gaze met mine, and struck me entirely speechless. Or no, not that, for I think I said, “Darling,” and “You are so beautiful.” Scattered words flared up in my mind and went out, like struck matches: _truth_ and _shameless_ and _naked_. But it is only now, looking back, that I understand them. They were mere sounds then, devoid of conscious meaning. I knew only that Holmes’s fingers were twisting and stroking inside my wife, and that she was a leaping flame in my arms. 

I swept my hands up to cup her breasts, as I had promised myself. “John,” she sighed. “John, tell me—”

I felt an edge nearly of panic, that she wanted me to speak.

Then Mary let out a little scream, and a mortified “Oh!” Her hips jerked, and she really did twist in my arms, trying anew to bury her face in my shoulder. “Oh, I—I can’t—” she said in genuine distress. “I shall—”

Holmes stopped, and looked between us anxiously. “Did I hurt you, madam? I was certain increased lubrication indicated a positive response…”

Enlightenment struck me as Mary groaned—this time in chagrin. “Do you wish to invoke habeas corpus, dearest?” I asked.

Holmes began to withdraw his fingers. “I really do apologize if I—”

She shook her head faintly, and tucked her hand into the pocket of his waistcoat. “Please don’t apologize.,” she murmured despairingly. “I’m quite all right. I only don’t know how I shall ever look you in the face at Sunday dinner again!”

Holmes looked utterly at a loss. “Why should you not, any more than two minutes ago?”

“Mary is concerned that she has disgusted you by an excess of…fluids,” I said as delicately as I could, afraid of making her self-consciousness worse. “As you are probably aware, it is not unusual for women to fear that their natural response to pleasure is somehow unseemly.”

“Ah,” said Holmes, relieved. “Really, my dear lady, a moment’s reflection will probably assure you that I am not very squeamish. But if you are in doubt you may apply to your husband, and I am sure he will gladly furnish you with a list of much more unwholesome places I have cheerfully inserted my fingers.”

I coughed. 

Holmes flushed. “Really, Watson. That is not what I meant at all—although I suppose it _is_ rather to the point, since it has come under Mrs. Watson’s direct observation.”

Mary laughed, and reluctantly pushed her hair out of her face. “All right, Mr. Holmes. I suppose I had better take you at your word. I am sorry to be so high-strung.”

His eyes gleamed at her. “It would be hypocrisy indeed, for me to complain of Dr. Watson’s predictable tastes now.”

I was too startled to laugh, but Mary did, more easily this time, and faced Holmes again with a simple trust that stopped my heart for a moment. I had thought it a miracle that she would kiss his cheek, and he would let her, and now…

He searched her face. Then he lifted one of her legs, and hooked it over his shoulder.

It unbalanced her a little, and it was a moment before I could regain the presence of mind to shift in compensation. But—as Holmes had somehow, evidently, predicted—some coiled tension went out of her. She relaxed against me, no longer holding back her hips from tilting towards him, and moved languidly upon his fingers.

Unexpectedly, his free hand briefly caressed _me_. “Well,” he said, amused, “Watson is clearly recovered from his exertions.” 

“Can you wonder at it?” I asked him. “This is the most erotic moment of my life.”

Mary snickered breathlessly. “You always say that, John.”

“It is always true. I cannot help it, if you are continually outdoing yourselves.”

She bent her knee, drawing him a little closer—for _me._ And he consented to be drawn, for me. 

I took the sweet soft weight of her breasts once more in my hands. 

“How is this, Mrs. Watson? Enough lubrication?”

“More. Oh— _oh!_ ” 

“You will like how it feels when she orgasms,” I told Holmes, to make her shiver and push her breasts into my hands.

I could not see what he did, but she bit off a moan. “Am I too loud? Will Mrs. Hudson hear me?”

“She is two stories below us,” Holmes reminded her. “And she has never complained about Watson.”

I flushed, my prick jumping.

“Yes, of course,” Mary said breathlessly. “You fuck John in this bed, don’t you?”

Holmes looked surprised, and I don’t know what sound I made. But he met my eyes and said, “I have done so many times, yes.”

“I shall fuck you in this bed, John, very soon.”

I swallowed. “I hope so, dearest.”

She put up a hand to grip the back of my neck. “Oh! Just like that, Mr. Holmes.”

“This is very gratifying,” Holmes said with an impish grin. “It is rare to do something to an acceptable standard, the first time.”

A tremor ran through her. “Don’t fish for a compliment, Mr. Holmes.”

“I assure you, dear lady, that is not what I am fishing for.” I could hear in his voice, as surely as if I had felt it myself, that he did something very lewd with his fingers as he said it.

She gave a sobbing laugh. “I am going to—”

She gave a little gasp, and trembled, and Holmes’s eyes lit. “Ah! You were right, Watson, that is rather remarkable.”

I held her tight, until at last she pushed his hand away and curled up in my lap. “Thank you, Mr. Holmes,” she said softly. 

He hesitated before getting to his feet. I heard a few cracks and pops as he stretched. “I am really not as young as I was,” he said regretfully. “But then, who is? You are welcome, Mrs. Watson, and thank you.”

He spent a very tactful amount of time washing his hands with his back to us, but Mary had got her nerves out of the way, I think, and her embarrassment now had the same pleased tinge as Holmes’s _Spare my blushes, Watson_ after a particularly brilliant deduction.

Holmes looked rather pleased with himself, too, when he at last turned around. I could see he was hard in his trousers, but he shook his head at my meaningful glance, and I sighed and gave it up. 

“I am rather hungry,” Mary said lazily.

Holmes’s smile broke out. “Have pity on poor Watson! We shall dine directly afterwards.”

Mary lolled round to see my face, sensual repletion in her whole attitude. “Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps we ought to make him wait.” She laughed at my expression, eyes bright. “Such noble resignation! I am only teasing, darling.” She kissed me quite unself-consciously, and even thrust her tongue into my mouth, in a way that made me quite wild.

“How is your leg?” Holmes asked me. “Hands and knees is probably easiest, the first time.”

Mary sighed. “I shall be sorry not to see your face. But there will be other times.”

I had almost forgotten that Mary meant to bring her ivory phallus home with us. It might have taken me another year to work up the courage to ask for such a thing—I might never have worked up the courage at all—but she had anticipated me. I squeezed her round the middle.

“My leg will be all right, but I think I had better begin lying down, and wait until the last moment.”

Mary had said herself that she wanted to see my face, and yet I slung an arm over my eyes as her dainty fingertips crept lower, and brushed hesitatingly over my anus. “You are really sure, Mary.”

She pressed more firmly. “I am not a hothouse flower, John. Why should you be shy with me, and not Mr. Holmes?”

I heard his evening pumps pace to the night-table and back. There was a faint grunt, and the pop of the new box of Vaseline opening. 

“Thank you,” she said with a smile in her voice, ceasing for a moment to touch me. “There _is_ a silly sensual pleasure in it, isn’t there?” I supposed she was making the first furrow in the smooth surface. 

Her hands came back, small and cool and shy.

“Of course today I have already prepared him,” Holmes said. “But you must be very careful in future, and not rush your fences.” There was a pause, and he added, “It is not a thing to do if you have been drinking.”

I wanted very badly to see how they looked at each other, and yet I could not bear to. I was too laid out, too defenseless. If there was pain on his face, it would sink straight in to my heart.

“Thank you, Mr. Holmes,” Mary said, with a slight coolness. I knew she had felt my muscles contract at his words. 

I wanted to defend Holmes to her, to assure her that it had been nothing serious, that I had stopped him before it could be anything serious. And yet I almost wept with gratitude for her championing of me. 

I had been so alone, and now I was not. Now I was rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Her slight fingers slipped in at last, so easily. Holmes had made me slick and ready and stretched for her. 

God, one day she would fit her whole hand inside me. I could not think of that. 

But as she probed and prodded, light and sweet, I remembered that I had a voice, and could speak to her with more than my body. “A little deeper, darling. Just a little. Don’t let Holmes frighten you. I am not made of glass.”

“I love you so much, John,” she said, voice trembling.

“I love you too, Mary.”

I heard Holmes’s huff of laughter just as her fingertip pressed firmly into— 

“There,” I told her. “Just there.”

“Can you look at me, dearest?”

If we had been at home in our own bed, I would have done it at once. I would have known that as much as it frightened me, it would be all right in a moment or two. But here, with Holmes watching us…with everything that had already passed…it felt like too much.

I heard Holmes’s footfalls once more. The bed creaked, and I heard his empty pumps fall to the floor. “May I?” He took my head in his hands, resting my neck on his crossed ankles. His fingertips pressed into my skull as Mary’s pressed into me lower down. _Morse code,_ I thought disjointedly, making a telegraph wire of me…

I kept my eyes closed, but I let Holmes draw my arm gently away from my face. His fingertips were tapping out Morse code on my wrist now—but no, he was faintly humming one of Mendelssohn’s _Lieder,_ and rehearsing the violin fingering. I was not sure if it was to soothe me, or quite unconscious—and why on earth did that soothe me?

Then I heard a match strike, and smelled Holmes’s cigarette. Why did _that_ soothe me? “Would you like a drag, Watson?”

I opened my eyes to see Mary’s reaction. She had been shaking her head bemusedly, but her half-smile grew whole when our eyes met. “ _There_ you are, John. Suit yourself, I suppose.”

I put up my free hand for it, and took the smoke gratefully into my lungs, eyes stinging. Only a little while ago, even sharing a cigarette with Holmes had been an impossible intimacy, something I would never have again—an unfathomable loss I must bear entirely alone, and somehow reconcile myself to as if it were nothing. 

“Am I hurting you, darling?”

“No,” I said hoarsely. “You are…quite the opposite.”

Holmes plucked his cigarette from my lips. “Go ahead and cry,” he said. “You will feel better.”

A wave of mortification swept over me. “Holmes!”

Holmes looked confused. “What?” Then he glanced at Mary. “Do you not—?”

Mary’s fingers tensed. “Do you often make John weep in your bed, Mr. Holmes?” she asked icily.

Holmes, alas, was too delighted at discovering that he knew something of me which my wife did not, to muster a serious reply. “No, only on special occasions.”

Her fingers went tenser still.

Damn. There was no getting out of it now. “It isn’t at all what you’re imagining, dearest. You must not be angry at Holmes. It is—it is simply an overflow of emotion.”

“You are astonishingly well matched,” Holmes said, nearly bubbling over with glee. “It would appear your husband is equally afraid of disgusting you by an excess of fluids. As you are probably aware, it is not unusual for men to think that their natural response to emotion is somehow unseemly.”

“You would know,” I retorted. Mary relaxed, evidently reassured by my tone.

“Touché,” he said, untroubled. “It is only a release of a different sort, Mrs. Watson.” He heaved a sigh. “I suppose I must gracefully concede defeat. Watson, your wife and I love you dearly. There is really no need to be embarrassed.”

My eyes filled. I blinked, and tried not to mind it when a hot tear ran over my temple and behind my ear.

“Tell me, John,” Mary said softly. “Tell me what is in your heart.”

“Only a year ago I thought…” I felt for Holmes’s hand, and gripped it hard. “That it would be a desecration of the vows I had made you, Mary, even to tell you—even to tell you the truth. You are so good to me. You are both so good to me.”

“Oh, dearest.” She bent to press a kiss on my stomach, sweet and warm and firm.

“Much less so than you deserve,” Holmes said dismissively. 

I was squeezing his hand too tightly, I must be hurting him, but he said not a word in protest, made not a sound, moved not a muscle in his face. I was annoyed with myself, that I should feel grateful for something I had chided him for, and loosened my grip with an effort. “Holmes, do you ever think of Stoke Moran?”

I could feel his surprise. “Now and then. It was a very singular case. Why?”

“The bed was bolted to the floor.” I didn’t know how to explain. I would not let myself hold his hand any tighter. “You took the bed, and told me to take the chair, and we waited alone in the dark.”

“You have a curious definition of ‘alone’,” he said. “I do not think you will find a dictionary to agree with you. It was selfish to bring you, Watson. But I think my nerve would have failed, if you had been one inch farther from me, or closer to the danger. I was swallowing a scream all night.”

He had never admitted that to me before. And now he did, quite deliberately—and before Mary. My grip relaxed at last. I need not cling so hard; he would not snatch his hand away.

Mary’s fingers curled inside me, undeniable. They felt so good. The wool of Holmes’s trousers was soft, the knob of his ankle sharp. 

I had been trying not to notice that my leg ached, and would ache more tomorrow—but now that I let myself, it was nothing so terrible. I let out a sobbing breath, and drew another one in.

I knew every lump in this mattress, had worn the cheap sheets smooth in the place where I lay. I heard the ticking of the clock, and Holmes and Mary breathing, became aware of the air cooling as the evening advanced, chilling the patches of sweat on my skin. 

“I am ready, Mary. Please.”

She let me slip the ivory phallus into the harness, and tighten it around her hips and buttocks and waist until its carved testicles nestled snugly against her vulva. I smiled up at her, caressing it with my fingers to be sure it only wobbled slightly, and she leaned down to kiss me, looking pleased with me and herself and all the world. 

“I never imagined you would want this,” I whispered to her.

She smiled impishly. “I never dreamed you would either. We were much too timid in our inferences.”

Holmes gave a startled laugh, and began to stand. “Don’t. I won’t try to touch you,” I promised. “Only let me hold your hand.”

“Certainly, in a moment. But as I am here, I might as well give Mrs. Watson the benefit of my experience just at first. Penetration is not quite as straightforward as it appears.” 

I stifled a giggle, and Mary laughed outright, but of course he was right, though I missed him already as I got on my hands and knees, resting my head on crossed forearms in the warm place he had left in the mattress. I could feel Mary’s shyness, and the awkward angle as she breached me—and then I felt the pressure of his hand on the small of my back, and his sure grip on her prick, just for a moment, before he stepped back. 

I could not hear what he said, but I felt how his kind, didactic murmur steadied Mary, as the trembling of a student afraid of failing her examination gave way to the enthusiasm of the eager pupil. 

There was no give in her hard prick, as it breached me in halting half-inches; I must bend to it, for it could not bend to me. But I realized that I could—that I, too, was capable of compensating for my wife’s lack of experience with my own. I wanted this, and she could give it to me—but the reverse was equally true. “Yes, dearest,” I murmured. “You are doing wonderfully. How do you find it?”

“I am amazed,” she said softly. “I am—I am so grateful that you will let me give to you, as well as receive.” She traced a pattern over my spine. “You are very well-formed, John. I usually do not have the opportunity to admire you from this angle.” It occurred to me, belatedly, that a disproportionate number of my wife’s lustful remarks about other men involved their arses. 

“I knew you were a highly observant woman,” Holmes said in amusement.

I reached for him. “Holmes,” I said a little desperately. “Holmes, please.”

In a trice he was seated at my head, stocking feet on the floor. He took my hand as I pressed my forehead into the sharp crease of his wool trousers. I realized I was going to ruin the wool, and did not care.

Mary rocked against me. “How is that, John?” In fact, I thought she was far more gentle than necessary. But I did not object to prolonging the experience, and confidence would come to her with practice. 

“It is splendid,” I told her. “You are splendid. You are both splendid.” 

There would probably never be another night like tonight, but to my surprise, I felt not even a shadow of grief at the thought. The three of us did our best with the everyday, the routine, but we could not help the quickening of our pulses at something new, singular, exceptional. 

Some glories came once in a lifetime, but their illumination lingered.

“You are easy to please,” Holmes said.

“No,” I told him. “No, I am very particular. I am only lucky.”

“I rather think you have made your own luck, dear boy.”

The sob rose quite naturally, and I tried not to resist it. I tried not to resist anything—to sway to Mary’s thrusts, and let my hand rest loosely in Holmes’s. I relaxed my throat, and let the hot tears soak his trousers. 

“And it does not mean I am hurting you, or making you unhappy,” Mary said pleadingly. “You are sure.”

I nodded my head—distantly embarrassed, and yet there was such peace in it. There was something erotic, even, in feeling the hot tears well up and fall, so easily, in such profusion. I need not fight the tide. I could give myself wholly over to the emotion wracking me, could let my shudders push me back onto the hard length within me. 

Mary bent to kiss my spine, and cradled me, and fucked me. There was no friction anywhere, no resistance. My lovers had made me so slick and open.

Holmes pressed my hand very briefly to the front of his trousers, so I would feel how I affected him. “You are a very thrilling spectacle,” he whispered in my ear. “The Götterdämmerung is really not in it.”

My tears were slowing, now; I felt light and alive and very sensitive. Sharply awake.

“Holmes, may I—” What I really wanted was his cock in my mouth, to anchor me, to give me something to do. But I knew he did not want that, so I swallowed his thumb, instead, and waited to see if he objected.

I had forgotten to expect that he would taste faintly like my wife. I remembered Mary quivering in my arms, her leg over his shoulder, his fingers twisting inside her…

Holmes’s thigh tensed beneath my cheek. But he did not pull away, or object; he let me work his thumb, the knuckle sliding over my tongue and the pad dragging over my palate, in and out, the instinctive rhythm quieting the urge to speak or think.

I floated, weightless as a butterfly, buoyed up by…by…

Words fled. I observed myself with crystalline clarity. My pleasure alighted for a moment, motionless, so lovely it stole my breath—and then it rose on bright wings, and vanished, leaving only the sense that one had witnessed a miracle.

When Mary had withdrawn, I rolled onto my back and rested my head on Holmes’s thigh, feeling that I saw the familiar ceiling clearly for the first time.

He patted my shoulder. “You did very well, Mrs. Watson,” I heard him say, and I was grateful I need not speak yet. He had said something once…his voice echoed in my still clear mind. _It is only goodness which gives extras, and so we have much to hope from the flowers._ “Come here, and I shall release you from your harness. This was an excellent notion. I congratulate you.”

I felt dimly that I ought to speak to her at such a moment, and hold her. But Holmes was doing up the buttons of her dress before I could find the nerve-power to move my hands, to tear my gaze away from the ceiling, to sit up and smile at her. 

“I…I am speechless, Mary.”

“Is that a good thing, dearest?”

I nodded. “Sometimes I think too much.”

They both laughed—but not at me. I knew they understood.

“If you have not the energy to dress, I can bring up the wine and oysters,” Holmes suggested.

I will not say I have _never_ eaten oysters naked in a cramped attic bedroom, but it really seemed to me that I had reached my limit for undignified behavior for a single evening. I was also, I realized, very hungry. “Are there truly oysters?”

Holmes grinned at me. “One day you will learn to appreciate my merits as a housekeeper.”

“No doubt,” I retorted, going to the basin to wash my face, and other places, and rather wishing there were a bathroom adjoining, so they would not both watch me do it. “Perhaps when you begin to keep the sitting room clear of loose papers and the butter dish free of human remains.”

“…No matter,” Mary said faintly. “We do not need butter for oysters.”

“It was only the one instance,” Holmes reassured her as he untangled my sock garters. “Your husband makes too much of it.”

I pulled on my shirt. “Don’t even ask me what I once found in the Vaseline box.”

“I should not dream of it, John.”

“It was merely—” Holmes began rather indignantly.

“No, no,” my wife talked over him, laughing, “I promised John I would never force a confidence! Here, darling, your tie will be crooked…”

As we were about to go downstairs, Holmes hesitated with his hand on the doorknob.

“What is it?” I asked him.

He shook his head and opened the door—and then he shut it again, and burst out, “How are you both? Is there anything we had better discuss? Oh, don’t look so delighted. The pair of you are insufferable.”


End file.
